


Teach Me

by RobinsonsWereHere



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, BAMFs for the win, DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ENDGAME, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Iron Family, Major Spoilers, Maria Hill is a BAMF, Pepper Potts is a BAMF, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), by which i mean pepper morgan peter harley rhodey and happy, i wrote this at midnight after i saw endgame, might turn this into a series, they're gonna adopt maria too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 13:30:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18621607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinsonsWereHere/pseuds/RobinsonsWereHere
Summary: Pepper Stark has had enough of mourning. Mourning only makes it more difficult to raise a daughter or head a company or be a superhero, or any combination of the three. Ready to put Tony's last gift to her to good use, she turns to a capable friend for help.





	Teach Me

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to get this up earlier, but I didn't on account of yard work. It's here now, though!

Pepper Stark does not know how to run a company, raise a daughter, and represent a superhero at the same time. For now, she’s thrown herself into the second duty and let the other two kind of float for a bit. Only, it’s been four months since her husband died and the Stark Industries stock is plummeting and the world is still very, very confused. They need their heroes.

The answer comes to her holding a stack of paperwork and wearing a neat blue suit, her hair in a bun and an obligatory smile on her face. “I’m about to clock out, Mrs. Stark,” says Maria Hill. “Is there anything else you want from me tonight?”

Pepper stares in shock at her PA, a woman who manages being the second-in-command to a CEO while still doing the same for the director of a covert intelligence agency. _Oh my god. How did I not think of this before?_ “I want you to teach me,” she says, her words rushed.

“Excuse me?”

“Maria, I’ve got a company to run and a daughter to raise- a daughter to _protect._ It’s not enough to sit up here and fill out business reports all day. Tony-” she chokes, but continues. “Tony’s not toiling away in the garage anymore. There’s only one suit left, and it’s mine. I have to keep going,” she explains.

Maria tilts her head. “I’m not sure I follow.”

Pepper takes a deep breath, looking at the photo on her desk. It’s Tony and Morgan napping in a hammock together, taken a week before Steve had shown up with the idea of traveling back in time. Straightening her spine, she looks Maria in the eye. “It’s my turn to be a hero,” she says, quiet but forceful. “Teach me.”

||||||||||||||

Maria has changed into leggings and a tank top and walks barefoot, Pepper still in heels behind her. “Teach me to shoot,” Pepper asks.

The agent shakes her head. “No. You need the basic stuff first. You were thrown into this way before you were ready, and the only reason you made it through a battle of that caliber was because of your husband and your ridiculously intuitive suit.” She takes a right turn towards Pepper’s rooms. “No offense.”

Pepper shrugs. “I didn’t hire you to sugarcoat things.”

“Good, because I won’t. Get changed into workout clothes; anything will do. It doesn’t have to be designer, it just has to give you a range of motion.”

Pepper comes out in an outfit similar to Maria’s, tying her hair back in a ponytail. “Am I good?”

“Solid. Let’s go.” Maria leads her down to the gym, then onto the mats. “Can you punch?”

“I know that my thumb needs to be on the outside and I shouldn’t aim for the teeth, but that’s about it.”

“It’s a start.” Maria spends the next few hours teaching Pepper how to fight, and by the time it’s dark outside, they’re both sweating and grinning. “Not bad, Stark.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Pepper laughs. Maria wonders idly how much she’s laughed in the past four months. As they pick up their water bottles, two more people enter the gym.

“I think someone’s gonna go to bed,” says Rhodey. “We’ve been having too much fun playing Nerf with the Bartons, haven’t we?”

Morgan giggles as Pepper lifts her into her arms. “I got Nathan with the sucker dart.”

“Oh, good job!” Pepper kisses her forehead. “Uncle Rhodey’s right, you must be tired after all that.”

Maria stands in the background with a smile on her face. This moment is not hers to intrude on.

|||||||||||||||

The training continues for weeks. Maria teaches Pepper how to punch and dodge a punch, how to shoot and how to disarm an opponent, how to pin a man twice her size to the floor (Bucky helps with that). In addition to fighting, Maria helps with paperwork and shows her how to make herself presentable when she’s going straight from sparring to a board meeting. After Pepper starts inviting her to dinner, she’ll even entertain Morgan with sleight-of-hand card tricks while Pepper helps Happy cook. A month after they start training, five months after the fight that had changed everything, Maria finally lets Pepper use a gun.

Pepper holds the gun level, her arms fully extended. Before she can fire, she feels Maria tapping her shoulder. She turns around and lifts the earmuffs from her head.

“Bend a bit at the elbows to prepare for kickback,” Maria warns. Pepper gives her a thumbs up, replaces the mufflers, and takes the shot. The noise startles her, the kickback makes her stumble backwards, and the bullet goes wide. Maria gives her that steady look of confidence Pepper has come to appreciate greatly. “I’m not surprised. Try again.”

She does. She tries again, and again, and again. Not just with the gun but with her fighting and her cooking and being home from meetings and training sessions in time to kiss Morgan goodnight. She tries, and eventually, her bullets fly straight, her muscles hold her steady, her pasta doesn’t boil over, and her daughter learns that she can all but set her watch to her mother’s goodnight stories. The night she intends to wear her suit once more, she kisses her daughter softly on the forehead. “I love you three thousand,” she whispers.

|||||||||||||||||

On the roof of the compound, Maria looks around at the assembled company. Harley Keener is fiddling with a small robot. Rhodey is double-checking the safety features of the flight deck. Happy is simply standing there, looking nervous. Even as she watches, another member joins them, pulling himself over the railing and removing the spider-mask. “What?” Peter asks defensively. “My therapist said I should face my fears, so I climbed up here.”

Maria shakes her head fondly, but then Rhodey steps forward. “She’s on her way, guys.”

The atmosphere feels charged. At the clanking of metal on concrete, Maria instinctively straightens her posture, a reaction that only Fury and Danvers have ever been able to gain from her. And there Pepper is, in all of her blue and silver glory, her helmet held at her side and her hair braided over the top of her head. Maria hides her pride behind a smirk. “You might wanna put that thing on.”

Pepper latches the helmet into place, and when she speaks again, her voice sounds mechanized. “FRIDAY, systems check?” Apparently all systems are go, because then Pepper stands in liftoff position.

Maria watches Pepper soar above them and thinks that maybe the CEO of Stark Industries is going to single-handedly usher in a new era. Then she sees Peter Parker on her left and Harley Keener across from her and she thinks of Morgan Stark asleep in her bed and realizes the new era has already begun.

||||||||||||||||

Pepper rises higher than she ever has, until all she sees above her are stars. She looks for the brightest one she can see, and stares at it for a long time. “I love you, Tony,” she murmurs. “I love you. I miss you. I’m going to keep doing what you were doing,” she promises. “I’m going to avenge you, by protecting everyone I can. It’s gonna be so hard without you, but I swear I’ll do it.” She blinks hard, feeling tears roll down her cheeks. “I swear.”

Taking one last look at the sky, she dives back down to her family beneath her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I love feedback, so comments and kudos are appreciated! if you want, you can find me on tumblr at chiefkarenvick !


End file.
